Ellen Porter
2/19/08
A Flourish of Rhythm

A circle of women
calls wisdom into their midst.
Holding drums their
fingers tremble in anticipation.

They look to the one
who is dying
look for the measuring beat
and so she begins.

A simple rhythm
sounding the full
resonance of the drum.
The stick finds center skin
and the women of wisdom follow.

The dying one adds
a flourish of rhythm
and the others accommodate
and then back again
and forward and back.

She who is dying
plays with the circle
two against three—a trick of timing.
As energy rises
she smiles as she toys playful.
In another month
still alive, still dying
they will meet
to drum again.


Ellen Porter
1/27/08
Bear

One alpine morning
I took pad and pen
and picked each stepfall
to the top of the ridge.

It was cold still,
my breath adding to the early fog.
I sat, my back resting against
an eon of granite
and waited for poetic phrases to come.

A thrashing in the scrub
several yards away,
pushing and prodding toward me.
And all I had to defend myself
from bear,
was an old green ballpoint pen
and a tablet.

I not so much decided to
remain seated
as that a paralysis of fear overtook me.
I waited; it thrashed
and came bursting into view:
huge, black, a red tongue lolling
from it’s mouth.
And then it peed in terror—
the neighbor’s large, unruly mutt.
I threw my arms around his neck
and we licked each other in giggles of delight.
Poetic words did not come that day.


Ellen Porter
3/01/08
Forgotten Lunch

When I see sycamore and pine
laced tight by windless snow
I stop to watch
white upon white
forgetting lunchtime
for memories of
earlier, destructive storms.

Smoked salmon and creamed cheese
can wait until I have my fill
of winter-heavy trees
circling the meadow
basking in the icy sun.


Ellen Porter
2/27/08
In Search of Mulberries

Searching for mulberries
I come too late in the season
but my stomach and soul
are hungry.

I munch on the bitter
needles of pine
and my feet grow
solid in the ground.

How can it be that
the Beloved sends me on
a seasonless journey?

Condescending,
Hafiz answers:
to teach you to laugh
my friend
to teach you to laugh
until the mulberry
bears fruit.


Ellen Porter
1/31/08
Of Old It Has Come To Me

It has come to me
only in honest wilderness:
the golden world.

In rocks, glistening
in thunder after rain,
in lightning not spent.

It has come down
in perfect rolling breakers
water clear enough
to magnify seals

to watch kelp,
dangling upward
from the ocean floor.

But it no longer comes,
the golden world:
perhaps the realm of adolescence.

And my heart aches
with its absence.
Oh, my heart aches.


Ellen Porter
1/26/08
snow presses deep

across the grass.
no sound
no motion
just deep resting white.

i wonder about the dirt
and all that springs from it:
does it breathe easily through its comforter
or is it intimidated by the dark;
does grass rattle beneath the cold;
do bulbs of wildflowers quiver?

i prefer to think they lie in peaceful sleep
no urge for thrusting into light;
no itching to show their colors.

if god is god
this pasture will soon enough be greening.


Ellen Porter
1/25/08
The Illusion and the Verse

I was so distracted
that I missed seeing
the full moon
rising orange and round
like a fine gourd at sunset.

My mind was on poetry,
how to come upon it unaware
and tack it to the page.
But instead it came to me
unaware and I lost both
the illusion and the verse.